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Articles

Co-evolution, opportunity seeking and institutional change: Entrepreneurship and the Indian telecommunications industry, 1923–2009

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Pages 29-52 | Published online: 08 Aug 2012
 

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the importance for entrepreneurship of historical contexts and processes, and the co-evolution of institutions, practices, discourses and cultural norms. Drawing on discourse and institutional theories, it develops a model of the entrepreneurial field, and applies this in analysing the rise to global prominence of the Indian telecommunications industry. The article uses entrepreneurial life histories to show how various discourses and discursive processes ultimately worked to generate change and the creation of new business opportunities. It suggests that entrepreneurship involves more than individual acts of business creation, but also implies collective endeavours to shape the future direction of the entrepreneurial field.

Notes

 1. North, ‘Economic Performance’, 360.

 2. Foucault, Governmentality, 93, 102.

 3. Huygens et al., ‘Co-Evolution of Firm Capabilities’; Jones, ‘Co-Evolution of Entrepreneurial Careers’.

 4. Van de Ven, ‘The Development of an Infrastructure’, 226.

 5. Nayak, ‘On the Way to Theory’, 187.

 6. Tsoukas, ‘The Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System’.

 7. Ardichvili et al., ‘A Theory of Entrepreneurial Opportunity’; Gaglio and Katz, ‘The Psychological Basis’; Kirzner, ‘Entrepreneurial Discovery’; Krueger et al., ‘Competing Models’.

 8. Boje, ‘A Career Approach’; Connell, ‘Entrepreneurial Enterprise’; Polese, ‘In Search of a New Industry’.

 9. Colli et al., ‘Family Character and International Entrepreneurship’.

10. Dimov, ‘Grappling with the Unbearable Elusiveness’, 62.

11. Popp and Holt, ‘The Presence of Entrepreneurial Opportunity’; Vlami and Mandouvalos, ‘Entrepreneurial Forms and Processes inside a Multiethnic Pre-Capitalist Environment’.

12. Roscoe et al., ‘How Does an Old Firm Learn New Tricks?’.

13. McGaughey, ‘Institutional Entrepreneurship in North American Lighting Protection Standards’.

14. Lopez-Morell and O'Kean, ‘A Stable Network’, 165.

15. Beckert, ‘How Do Fields Change?’, 606.

16. Lim et al., ‘Institutional Environment’.

17. Puffer et al., ‘Entrepreneurship in Russia and China’.

18. Pacheco et al., ‘The Coevolution of Institutional Entrepreneurship’, 1004.

19. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance; North, Understanding the Process of Economic Change.

20. Sandberg and Tsoukas, ‘Grasping the Logic of Practice’.

21. Geertz, Peddlers and Princes, 28.

22. Levinthal and Myatt, ‘Coevolution of Capabilities and Industry’.

23. Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 169.

24. Athreya, ‘India's Telecommunications Policy’; Chhaya, Sam Pitroda; Chowdary, ‘Politics and Economics’; Chowdary, ‘Telecom Liberalization’; Chowdary, ‘Telecom Reforms’.

25. North, A Transaction Cost Approach, 666, line 913.

26. Maclean et al., Business Elites and Corporate Governance.

27. Markovits, Indian Business, 18.

28. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 92–155.

29. Tripathi, The Oxford History of Indian Business, 148–72.

30. Markovits, Indian Business, 18.

31. Brimmer, ‘The Setting of Entrepreneurship in India’, 564–7.

32. Hazari, The Structure of the Corporate Private Sector; Ray, Industrialization in India.

33. Moraes, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, 165.

34. Singh, Caste System in India; Subramanian, ‘Banias and the British’; Tripathi, Business Communities of India.

35. Maclean et al., ‘Dominant Corporate Agents’.

36. Bagchi, Private Investment in India.

37. HM Government, Indian Constitutional Reforms, 270–1.

38. Moraes, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, 166–8.

39. CAB 24/166, ‘Proposed Protective Duties on Steel Imported into India’, 11 April 1924.

40. Wagle, ‘Imperial Preference’, 123.

41. CAB 24/165, ‘Report of the Imperial Wireless Telegraphy Committee’, 25 February 1924.

42. Moraes, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, 179–81.

43. Letter of 7 December 1923 quoted in Piramal, Business Legends, 42–3.

44. Moraes, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, 197.

45. CAB 24/174, ‘Summary of Conferences between the Secretary of State and the Governor-General, held in the Council Room, India Office’, May–June 1925, 56.

46. Ibid., 75.

47. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 37, ‘Letter to Purushottamdas Thakurdas’, 29 November 1926, 361.

48. Tripathi, The Oxford History of Indian Business, 259–81.

49. Guha, India after Gandhi; Khilnani, The Idea of India.

50. Tripathi, The Oxford History of Indian Business, 282–95.

51. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 172–85.

52. Ibid., 156–213.

53. Chenoy, ‘Industrial Policy’, 15–19.

54. Denoon, ‘Cycles in Indian Economic Liberalization’.

55. Desai, India's Telecommunication Industry.

56. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 235.

57. Chakravartty, ‘Telecom, National Development and the Indian State’, 234.

58. Chowdary, ‘Telecom Reforms’, 2085.

59. McDowell, Globalization, Liberalization and Policy Change; Mody, ‘State Consolidation’; Petrazzini, ‘Telecommunications Policy’.

60. McDowell, Globalization, Liberalization and Policy Change, 135.

61. Athreya, ‘India's Telecommunications Policy’; Desai, India's Telecommunication Industry; McDowell, Globalization, Liberalization and Policy Change; Mody, ‘State Consolidation’.

62. McDowell, Globalization, Liberalization and Policy Change, 161.

63. Pitroda, ‘Development, Democracy’, 2.

64. Ibid., 6.

65. Ibid., 7.

66. Chhaya, Sam Pitroda, 122–3.

67. Ibid.

68. McDowell, Globalization, Liberalization and Policy Change, 138.

69. Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT): http://www.cdot.co.in/about_us/brief_history.htm (accessed 21 May 2012).

70. Maclean et al., ‘Dominant Corporate Agents’; Maclean et al., ‘Managerialism’.

71. Pitroda, Interview.

72. Maclean et al., ‘Dominant Corporate Agents’.

73. Chakravartty, ‘Telecom, National Development and the Indian State’, 241.

74. Chowdary, ‘Politics and Economics’, 13.

75. Tripathi, The Oxford History of Indian Business, 319–25.

76. Pedersen, ‘Explaining Economic Liberalization’.

77. TRAI, The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators.

78. Sanghvi, Men of Steel, 23.

79. Ibid., 23.

80. Ibid., 23.

81. Mittal, Interview.

82. Sanghvi, Men of Steel, 24.

84. Interviewee 1, executive of Bharti Airtel, interviewed 12 January 2010.

85. Interviewee 2, executive of Bharti Airtel, interviewed 9 October 2009.

86. Sreedharan and Wakhlu, Restoring Values; Harriss, ‘The Great Tradition’.

87. Seo and Creed, ‘Institutional Contradictions’.

88. Reed and Mukherjee, Corporate Governance.

89. Foucault, Governmentality.

90. Davis et al., Management in India.

91. Kapila, Indian Economy.

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